TLC looking for $150,000 on Kickstarter for new album

ATLANTA, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- R&B superstars TLC are turning to Kickstarter and their fans to help raise money to fund the band's fifth and final studio album.

The group, who once titled an album Fanmail and decorated it with the names of fans who wrote them as a way of saying thanks, is asking TLC listeners to return the favor.

"We owe so much of our success to you," TLC's surviving members told fans on their Kickstarter page.

"Your loyalty and support throughout the past 20 years motivates us to do our best work. Without you, we wouldn't have ten top 10 singles and four number 1 singles. We wouldn't have won five Grammy awards or sold 65 million records worldwide. Without you, we wouldn't have become the most successful girl group of all time! Without you there would be no TLC!"

The group is incentivizing donations with exclusive remixes for $5, digital album downloads for $15, or, for between $1,000 and $5,000, T-Boz or Chilli will hang out with generous fans, either at the movies, a concert or even a custom workout class hosted by Chilli.

All told, the band as trying to raise $150,000, a number they're likely to hit as fans have already contributed over $61,000 since the campaign launched Monday.

As for deceased member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, the band says her presence is always felt when they perform or record, but they're not necessarily comfortable incorporating her unreleased material with the new album.

"Lisa was working on her solo stuff [at the time of her 2002 death] and she wanted to go in a direction that was different from Left Eye with TLC," Chilli explained to Billboard.

"And we totally understood, respected and supported her, but a lot of that is different from the type of music that we do. At that time we were searching really hard to find stuff to go with songs we were working on to finish the [3D] album. So to answer your question, probably not, but I'm not going to say 'no' because we're open to it. But at the end of the day, everyone knows how much we love our sister. You go to our show, you feel her presence."

The new album is expected to be released in September 2015.